Barely two months after a gunman killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville, the lack of information about a motive has sparked a bitter legal battle over whether diaries and handwritten notes were found during a search the shooter’s house. and the car should be released to the public.
Amid arguments over the constitutional right to access public records and a political dispute over gun control legislation, parents of about 100 families at Covenant School have made it clear they want the material remain closed, at least until the surviving classmates finish the school year.
“It’s such a heavy burden for them to put themselves back in the middle of all this when they’re just trying to heal,” Eric G. Osborne, a lawyer for the families, said at a court hearing Monday. “Clearly they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t honestly believe that the release of these writings would have a very negative effect on them.”
Journalists, a gun rights group and others have sued to compel the release of the writings. But much of the hearing was devoted to whether Tennessee law allowed parents, the school itself and the campus’s companion church to have a legal voice in the dispute, a question the judge said he would answer by the end of Wednesday.
“I think getting the information that needs to be released is a good thing,” said the judge, Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles of the Davidson County Chancery Court, who acknowledged the case represented “a uncharted territory” and called for sensitivity as he continued.
Even if the court rules in favor of the parents, the thornier question of how much to reveal about the shooter’s motivations and final thoughts will still remain. Officials have said they will most likely redact some of the material if the court orders its release, weighing First Amendment protections and the need for a public explanation against fears of inspiring more violence and increasing contagion. of mass murders.
The writings can also help build a growing body of research that examines patterns among similar attacks and tracks the spread of fanatical beliefs.
“One of the reasons we know as much as we do about mass shooters today, things we didn’t know in the past, is because of what the perpetrators do and say,” said Adam Lankford, a University of Alabama professor who has studied mass shootings. But in addition to listening to survivors, he added, “the best argument for not releasing him is just to say, ‘We don’t want to give these perpetrators what they want.'”
After a deadly attack at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999, the images and motivations of the two gunmen splashed across cable news and front pages for weeks. Its sinister notoriety has reverberated in several mass shootings in what is now known as the Columbine effectas isolated and troubled youths have used this murder as a roadmap to achieve infamy through violence in their own communities.
The Nashville shooter “considered the actions of other mass murderers,” according to police he said in early Aprilalthough they noted at the time that the reason was unknown.
In the decades since Columbine, news organizations, including The New York Times, have refined a set of guidelines for reporting on mass shootings: largely avoid repetitive use of the shooter’s name and image, and focus you in the victims and survivors.
But releasing an abuser’s writings, and how to share them, is more complicated, and courts, news organizations and law enforcement have wrestled with it before.
Nearly 1,000 pages of documents related to the Columbine shooting were released in 2006 as a result of a Colorado Supreme Court order. The Hartford Courant won a five-year court battle to see documents from the gunman responsible for the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Social media has somewhat negated the need for a court to intervene, as several mass shooters have deliberately left a trail of hateful and malicious thoughts online, including the attacks in Buffalo and El Paso, Texas. But it has also allowed the writings and graphic images to circulate easily, which experts say could increase the risk and outweigh the research and investigative merits of publishing some of the writings.
“It’s millions of people, all commenting and then commenting and speculating, and that’s where it gets really difficult,” said James Meindl, a professor of applied behavior analysis at the University of Memphis who studies the behavior of mass shooters and the news. outlets can report it responsibly.
The absence of a clear motive or meaningful social media posts by the Nashville shooter has already fueled rampant speculation. After police officials said the shooter identified as transgender, right-wing activists stepped up their attacks on transgender people, asserted a connection between the shooting and the shooter’s gender identity without any evidence, and they speculated about a conspiracy to cover up details about a murder at a Christian school.
Pressure to act on gun legislation has also prompted Republican state lawmakers to push for the release of the writs, after a tumultuous stretch in which two black lawmakers were expelled — and later reinstated — for leading protests calling for control of arms in the House, but no. action has been taken on any measures related to access to firearms.
Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, called a special session in August to consider what he described as public safety legislation, and released a draft proposal that could allow judges to take away guns from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. Citing upcoming legislative work, Republicans have demanded the documents as a way to fully inform any potential policy changes.
“If we hope to pass meaningful legislation that effectively deters this type of targeted attack, we will need to have all the facts to make informed decisions,” more than 60 House Republicans wrote in a letter to the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department this month .
A Republican state senator, Todd Gardenhire, is also among those who have called for the records to be released, citing “research” in “writing new school safety laws.”
Some Democrats and gun control supporters worry that Republicans are focusing on the specific content of the briefs as a way to avoid addressing what they see as the larger issue of access to firearms.
Several media outlets, including The Tennessean, have argued that the documents should be released under state public records laws and have cautioned against violating First Amendment protections.
The Tennessee Firearms Association and James Hammond, a former Tennessee county sheriff, are among the law enforcement and conservative groups that have also cited a violation of the state’s public records law in demanding the release of the records, echoing the argument that it is important to know more about the reason before the special legislative session.
On Monday, their attorneys argued that Covenant School, as a private school, could not claim exemptions for school security under the public records law. They also questioned whether the parent group had legal standing to intervene in the case or whether it was entitled to the protections afforded to victims of crime.
Most of the parents have not yet been publicly identified as parties to the lawsuits, and their attorneys indicated that several wished to remain anonymous if the case moves forward.
Law enforcement officials in Nashville have argued that releasing the briefs prematurely would prejudice an ongoing investigation; for now they believe the shooter, killed by police at the school, acted alone. The Nashville Metropolitan Police Department, in a separate court filing, did not object to the release of a redacted compilation of the shooter’s writings, although Davidson County Chancellor Myles is willing to review what an attorney of the city described as a set of evidence “volumes”. .
Lt. Brent Gibson, the officer overseeing the investigation, estimated in a court filing that it would take the Police Department a year to complete its work, warning that “releasing any of the pieces of the puzzle too quickly could jeopardize the preparation of this complex puzzle.” ” He added that the agency had to subpoena many records, such as messaging data and Internet search history, and conclude its interviews.
Chancellor Myles will continue to review documents and evidence in police possession, as well as previous cases in Tennessee, before making her decision on whether parents have a legal right to intervene.
“My goal is to make sure that anything that needs to come out can come out in a way that protects everyone involved, but also gives open access,” he said.
